AJ Reynolds/OnlineAthens.com & The Athens Banner-Herald

Confidence increase on the court evident for Clarke Central's Johnson

Put him in front of his teammates now and none of them would guess that Clarke Central’s quarterback and shooting guard Cameron Johnson had confidence issues when he first started high school.

Back then, he was a freshman guard on the varsity basketball team. He thought he fit in among the bigger, older players who were already established starters.

“I thought my confidence was there,” said Johnson, who was also a receiver. “I was telling myself I can play with these guys.”

But he didn’t get the chance to prove himself in the presence of those teammates, getting minimal playing time during his freshman campaign. He had to wait until his sophomore year to earn a starting role with the Gladiators. Johnson wasn’t able to have the effect he wanted, as Clarke Central closed out the 2011-2012 season at 10-16.

“We had some hard games, lost some we shouldn’t have,” he said. “It’s been rough the last three years because we know we could’ve went farther.”

The next year, though, he was able to help the team stage an impressive turnaround. Johnson, alongside forward Leroy Legette and guard Deiuntre Cox, propelled Clarke to a 20-6 season in which the team averaged 63.6 points per game.

Now a senior, Johnson finds himself the leader of an undefeated team that averages 73 points per game. His personal average is at 21 through 14 games this season, compared to a 13.6 average in 25 games last year.

“He’s a quarterback and a point guard. He knows what it takes to get everybody to buy in,” basketball coach Andre McIntyre said. “He makes sure he has a relationship with each player on the team.”

It took some time, however, for Johnson to get to the point where he felt comfortable leading a team.

The emergence of his leadership had a lot to do with the pressure put on him during his second year at Clarke Central. Coming off of a season in which he’d been a freshman receiver on the junior varsity football team, he had to mature fast.

Then-head coach Leroy Ryals named Johnson the starting quarterback as a sophomore after Martay Mattox graduated.

Johnson knew it wouldn’t be easy to pick up where Mattox had left off — Mattox led the Gladiators to the 2009 GHSA Class AAAA state title game and to the second round of the playoffs during Johnson’s freshman year.

Instead of coming in and forcing his own style on a team that featured 45 upperclassmen, Ahren Self said Johnson let the older guys lead the team. He quietly proved to them he was worthy of being the first-string quarterback by sending the Gladiators back to the second round of the playoffs in his first season. He totaled 1,783 yards and 23 touchdowns that year.

“By the end of junior year and into senior year, he started not only to be a leader by example but also be a leader expressing emotion, talking a little bit more and being more verbal,” said Self, who took over as head football coach when Ryals resigned last spring. “He started taking charge like a quarterback should, leading the team and helping guys with the offense because he knew it better than anybody else.”

The confidence Johnson built up as a junior allowed him to spend more time last spring working on basketball. In years past, he focused on football in his downtime, conditioning himself for the hard hits he would take and bursts of energy he’d need to be a successful quarterback.

But when he noticed he was getting more attention for his talents on the court than on the field, he dedicated his off-season to basketball. He played more travel basketball in the summer, which kept him in shape for the transition between football and basketball that came in November.

“In the past, it’s taken him a while (to transition between sports),” McIntyre said. “I remember last year he came out of football and the first day of practice he couldn’t make it through. This year he came in and jumped right in. He was in better basketball shape.”